


Amalgamate

by compos_dementis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/M, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 20:43:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is the last time we can see each other," he says, but they both know he doesn't mean it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amalgamate

He is aching, a quiet and constant pain, and he does not -- will not -- let it show. They're lying together, with her body half atop his, her naked ankles crossed somewhere in the vicinity of the pillows, and his fingers are splayed across her back. He can feel her spine, each vertebrae hard beneath his fingertips. He wonders, briefly, if he can leave indents in her skin.

"This is the last time we can see one another," he says, but they both know he doesn't mean it.

John is on his honeymoon, somewhere with sandy beaches, probably, where they serve drinks with little umbrellas in them, and Sherlock feels sick with grief. Irene knows; she's always known, always understood his love for John -- even before he knew himself, honestly -- and she's not envious of it in the slightest. That's part of what he likes about her. There is no petty struggle for his affections. She has them, irrevocably. She always has. She'd heard about the wedding, and she'd come to 221B almost directly afterward because she knows how he gets, almost better than he does. She knows -- she knows.

And she says as much aloud, she says, "I know," with one of those mysterious little half smiles, and her lips are brushing against his neck again. Trailing over his rapid pulse. He wants to flip them over, wants to take her apart piece by piece, see her come undone beneath him. He doesn't move other than to tilt his head, and she hums her appreciation against his skin.

They will see each other again despite their promises. This is the first time he's seen her since his return to Baker Street, but it certainly won't be the last. They're both far too stubborn for that. Next time, it won't be under any pretenses; next time, he will be sure to enjoy her properly, when his heart isn't weighed down with loss.

He's half convinced to ask her to stay. A night or two, at most, he tells himself. In reality, he would want her to stay on a far more permanent basis. He can count the number of people who can tolerate him for any length of time on one hand. (John, naturally; Molly; Lestrade; Mrs. Hudson; Irene.) She is practical. She is intelligent. She gets bored too, sometimes, and she keeps him guessing. He can imagine her walking nude through the flat, or in nothing but his dressing gown, her hair tangled from sleep, making coffee in his kitchen. He can imagine arguing about television with her.

Despite his heart's insistence that her presence here would be nothing but an improvement, he cannot bring himself to ask. It's pride, probably. Alone protects him. He'd gotten too close to John-- he'd wanted too much. His thoughts had run wild, his body betrayed him, until he'd become fixated on the 'what-ifs.'

What if John pinned him to the door one night, still high on the thrill of a case? (Their clothes wet from rain, John's form pinning his own against the hard wood paneling, rubbing friction and warmth into him.) What if Sherlock had leaned over one afternoon over Thai food and Bond films and kissed him properly? (John's kisses would taste like green curry and beer. It would be divine.) What if John loved him back? (Wholly, completely.)

What if? What if? What if?

He's already been through this once, this process of longing, this insistence on distancing himself from his emotions. The first time, it had been in the presence of Irene Adler's corpse, or what he'd thought was her corpse, laid out on the metal slab. Molly had watched him; Mycroft had watched him; he'd crumbled down, slowly, before their eyes.

What if?

It's different now, of course. All of that longing, all of those tumultuous emotions that he couldn't force into audible words, they all brought him here, to Irene's lips against his collarbone and her hands on his thighs, to Sherlock's heart beating wildly beneath his ribs.

His longing for John, in contrast, has driven John away from him.

When he had lost Irene that Christmas, he'd shut down; he'd mourned; he'd composed music in her name, waiting for a sign that it wasn't true. It hadn't been. Losing John is different. He doesn't have the right to mourn because John insists that nothing has changed, even when _everything_ has changed.

"Stop," Irene murmurs, her fingers halting in their maddeningly slow strokes against the soft skin of his inner thighs. "Come on, out of your head."

He grunts in response, a tiny noise, a stubborn one. It's difficult to stop thinking when he's rapidly losing control of everything he holds dear.

"Very eloquent," she teases. Despite himself, he can feel the beginnings of a smile tugging at his lips, and he can feel her responding one against his stomach. He can't see it, but he can replicate it in his mind's eye, and it makes his heart flutter. "Relax. Focus. I've got you."

He should feel offended; he is not fragile, he doesn't need to be handled with care. Instead, he feels very warm, and very safe.

Sherlock doesn't think about John when she rolls the condom onto him, when she straddles his hips. He doesn't think about John when she sinks down, deliciously, when he is sheathed inside of her and her warmth leaves his breath as just a tremble in his throat. He wants to sit up, to thrust into her properly, but she pushes him down with her palms flat against his chest.

"Don't," she warns, but no threat follows. If he wanted to, he could easily flip her over, drive into her, making up for inexperience with passion and intensity. He doesn't, because sometimes, it's nice to be able to let her take the reins. And she does it so well; he doesn't have to move, doesn't have to do much of anything other than lie there, watching her expressions as she circles her hips, as she clenches around him, as she raises and lowers herself just minimally enough to tease.

She says again, "Don't," when he reaches for her, instead taking his hands and resting them at her thighs. He slides up to her hips, pulls her down so he can thrust up into her, and her breath stutters. It's like being at the epicenter of an earthquake -- dangerous and destructive, watching everything fall apart. She does not fall apart, not yet. He may be. His face has grown impossibly warm and she begins her gentle, slow thrusts, knowing precisely what he likes, memorized from their previous encounters.

None of this is new to either of them. He is inexperienced, and shockingly vanilla in his preferences, but he knows her body the way he knows the streets of London. He knows every freckle, every scar, every hair and mole and wrinkle. He knows how much pressure to apply when he rubs her shoulders.

("Where did you learn to do this?" she asked, boneless underneath his hands.

"Moscow," he replied, and kissed the back of her neck while she sighed and slumped into the hotel bed.)

He knows how she likes to be kissed, deep and passionate with just a hint of teeth. He knows she has a weakness for truffles. He knows that she likes expensive wine, but shares his affinity for cheap takeaway.

He knows that she loves him; her attraction for him isn't limited to the purely physical, though she's never said as much aloud, and likely never will. He knows that she knows that her feelings are not unrequited. He knows that she knows that he won't say anything either, not if she won't.

"That's it, there we are," and she's taking his wrists now, pinning them above his head. He hadn't even realized how close he was until he now; he can feel her breath against his ear, can feel her thrusts slowing, growing more forceful, pounding the breath out of him. She is surprisingly strong for such a small woman.

"Next time," she says into his ear, and his temperature spikes against his will. "Next time, I'm going to take things slowly. I'll take you somewhere we won't be interrupted. Blindfold you. Make you guess what I'm going to do next. Would you like that? Not being able to see anything, stripped of your sight? Maybe I'll make you get on all fours, spank you raw. Maybe I'll make you beg for me to take you. The great Sherlock Holmes on his knees, stripped down to base instincts. Pleading with me to fuck you senseless."  
He knows well that she wouldn't do that; she knows, too. But the words against his ear, the visual image of her commanding him to his knees, it's enough to begin to tip him over the edge. She encourages him, and there's a quake in her own legs as she moves herself faster against him, grinding down, whispering, "Come on, I've got you, let yourself go," and he does, all of his breath leaving his body as he comes and comes.

Her hips are unrelenting, and there's a broken sort of whimper in her throat as her whole body clenches, fluttering around him as her breath skips, stops entirely, resumes in slow, heated bursts. He feels like dead weight when it's over, with Irene's breathing heavy against his shoulder, her body resting entirely against him. It's too warm suddenly, tacky with sweat, and he grows uncomfortable as he softens inside of her.

"Move," he says, his voice oddly quiet after the commanding nature of her own in his ear. "It's sticky."

She does, after a moment, without complaint. He removes the condom, tying it off, and stands (his body protests, wanting to lie in bliss for a little while longer), walks to the other side of the room, tosses it in the bin.

Irene is on her back when he returns. Naked, practically glowing in the late afternoon light. Sherlock watches her, and her eyes open to watch him as well. She's vulnerable like this, more vulnerable than she is when they're pressed into each other, and he takes it all in, wants to bottle it up and keep it for himself. Starkly nude as the day he met her, and yet softer, more open, her face flushed in afterglow.

She situates herself so that she is beneath the blankets, her head on the pillows, hair very dark against the white pillowcase. She pats the spot beside her, and he slips in as well.

"It's all going to be all right, you know," she tells him. He wants to believe her, yet he can't. His love for John is a chaotic mess, leaves him shattered beneath his skin. He knows that John doesn't love him in return, not in the way he wants. He never will.

"Kiss me," he insists, because he doesn't want to think about John anymore. She does, tenderly, without any of the urgency that is usually present in their affairs. They have, for once, all the time in the world.

And still, he says again, "This is the last time."

It's not. There will be a last time, in the far future, as there is a last time for everything. They will continue to meet, in secret until she is safe enough to rebuild her identity, and he will continue to destroy himself, and she will continue to help piece him back together. He will continue to love her just as he will continue to love John. And she will never ask him to choose between them.

Her eyes are closed. He presses his nose into her hair and holds her, tightly, as she says,

"I know."


End file.
